Much of Iraq remained offline on Thursday night and several cities, including Baghdad, locked down as security forces battled to control crowds of demonstrators who took to the streets for a third day of anti-government protests.
The death toll from rallies that have paralysed the country rose to 19, with at least several hundred more wounded, medical authorities said. Protesters accused government forces of using disproportionate violence in Baghdad and the southern cities of Nassiriya, Amara and Basra where demands for services and reforms have been met with sustained force.
Unrest, which started on Tuesday, has quickly spread to rolling protests in most parts of Iraq, except the Kurdish north – posing an increasingly serious test to the country’s leadership, which has offered little leeway in the face of the demands, and instead steadily escalated a crackdown.
The size and momentum of the protests have startled senior officials, as has the apparent lack of organisation by the country’s many vested political interests, who have mobilised large numbers in earlier rallies as a means of applying pressure on officials.
In response, the Iraqi prime minister, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, ordered a city-wide curfew across Baghdad from 5am on Thursday, adding to those imposed elsewhere a day earlier. Two border crossings with Iran were closed. The city’s international airport was barricaded for a while by demonstrators and the Green Zone in the centre of the capital hit by what appeared to be a rocket, or mortar.
A statement released by the US-led coalition said forces “reserve the right to defend ourselves”. The US embassy in the Green Zone said it was suspending consular services, amid threats from demonstrators to storm the fortified areas in the coming days.
Iraqi officials have drawn widespread scorn from many citizens over the past decade, in which a series of administrations have been accused of pilfering up to $450bn in state funds. Transparency International ranked Iraq 168 out of 180 nations in its Corruptions Perceptions Index in 2018.
Despite Iraq’s vast oil wealth and the robust global price for crude, services remain basic, with much of the country experiencing only 12 hours of electricity each day, especially during scorching summer months.
Iraqi leaders have made few public statements, amid fears that organised political groups, some with foreign backing, could join the fray over the weekend – adding impetus to protests that could prove even harder to contain.
Moqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the powerful Sadr movement which claims the support of up to 4 million Shia Iraqis, said on Thursday that he supports “peaceful demonstrations”. His loyalists were active in protests two years ago in Baghdad, with some launching incursions into the Green Zone, where politicians, embassies and military leaders are based.
The internet remained severed in much of the country except the Kurdish north, which is connected to the web via a different source. In cutting communication links, authorities hoped to curtail the demonstrators’ ability to organise.
Clarisse Pásztory, a senior European diplomat who served in both Baghdad and Erbil, said the protests appear to have started organically, fed by unaddressed grievances over services and the direction of the country.
“There is a sense, particularly in the Shia south, that Iraq is serving regional interests and ‘masters’ than its own diffuse interests. The main external target of complaint seems to be Iran, hence nothing sectarian.
“No government can create jobs overnight, but what they need to do is create a credible vision – a path towards a slow prosperity that people can believe in. Tough policing and soft speeches won’t do the trick.”